


Disembodied

by tried2write



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Depressed Lance (Voltron), Depression, Episode: s06e01 Omega Shield, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Langst, Resurrection, Suicidal Lance (Voltron), Temporary Amnesia, but stuff happens, i dont want to spoil stuff, it's dark, various trigger warnings probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-04 07:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15836844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tried2write/pseuds/tried2write
Summary: About the feeling of death and why to miss it.-------Basically a slightly different view on the Omega Shield episode that started off Season 6...





	1. Punctured Lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I swear I love Lance)

A foreign coldness seemed to engulf him, slow and steady. It crawled up his back along his spine, counted the vertebrae of his neck, threaded through his hair, creeped over his eyes and gagged him to remain mute. Then: numbness and a vast void in his mind and soul. Nothingness was the result of a battle which never really took place.

Death was… a concept that got introduced to Lance in this specific way sooner than he had imagined. He had known that it was always waiting for all of the paladins right around the corner. He had to a part seen it coming due to them being in an intergalactic war but he never would have thought to hit him there. Lance had known that protecting his friends and family had its price but he might have underestimated the extend and severeness.

When he had pushed Allura out of the way he was expecting the extreme pain resulting from being hit by the energy discharge but he hadn’t exactly expected to die from it.  
While the fire had been sweeping over him it was unbearable. Hot electricity had pulsed strongly through his veins threatening to burst him into small particles of glass crystals. The energy had pulled and pushed heavily on the whole of his being. It had felt like thousands of sharp scalpels had been hacked into his skin, stringing his blood to threads to hold him down to the pilot seat, cracking every bone in him into the amount of stars surrounding the scene. It had felt like a vacuum rushed down his windpipe while he had screamed in agony, making itself at home in his lungs and swallowing any attempt of air, of life force to reach him to stay conscious through this assault while also sucking in anything that was still left in him. It had been so overwhelming from one moment to another: first calm, then the pain and then?

Cold.

He didn’t really register that he was dead until a warm, soft, calm, blurred something seemed to tuck on him, lift him up. Lance hadn’t even registered the previous numbness and nothingness until he slowly regained that feeling of simply being. But with coming back to existing came the remaining tension and soreness of what previously transpired. He could feel the lingering energy run from his heart up to his shoulders, down his biceps, swirl around his forearms and finally kiss his limp fingertips with a slight spark. Everything ached and Lance wondered for a moment why he had to be bought back. He preferred the emptiness over remembering the pain and the torture of being in that moment before death had hold him in its grasp. It was with that thought that he noticed that he came back from being dead. He had died.

It wasn’t a huge realization, a shock to him. It was just a fact that he simply accepted while floating on the edge of unconsciousness.

The increasing prickling of the remaining energy roused him to face life again. He already forgot what the sight before him had been when he left his life behind but it certainly wasn’t what his eyes registered now as he slowly opened them. Relieved, teal-blue eyes met his own, only separated by two helmet visors.

“Huh?”, Lance wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this situation while he blinked a couple of times, getting rid of this weird, foreign feeling on his eyelids that apparently accompanied being dead for a couple of doboshes. He suspected that Allura had been rather close to crying judging by the soft glint in her eyes and how they glimmered in the warm light of the red lion.  
Did she bring him back? He didn’t really know much about quintessence and didn’t bother ever trying to get it because first on the list of “learn to understand it” came the mystic that was Keith and then math… But if anyone from the whole crew was able to bring someone back from the dead, it was definitely Allura.  
“You saved me,” he whispered.

From what, he wasn’t sure. The coldness, numbness, nothingness. Everything probably. He didn’t know if that feeling was only a moment between the here and now and the afterlife or if his soul would have existed in that paradox void for eternity. Whatever it would have been, he was back to reality and life now.  
“I owed you one”, Allura answered with the same look on her face which then shifted to one of sadness.  
Right. She had owed him. That was all there was to it.  
Lance gulped down the unsettling feeling that this statement gave him, blamed it on the recent events and instead tried to appreciate the moment.  
He gave her a tired smile.

Why else would she want him back from the dead if not for a debt? Why would she resurrect him of all people? He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that debt...  
Now he felt more welcome in the void.

His throat still hurt from the screaming he did when the energy had pulsed through him and he knows that the coms had been active before. He faintly remembered Pidge previously powering up the shield with Shiro and relaying this to Hunk. His yelling would have had blasted their ears out and all of them very probably knew what happened.  
With the coms silent and the very present lack of conversation or questions he noticed: He should have stayed dead.


	2. Fractured Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why it‘s okay to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this out sooner but school is kicking my ass... qwq  
> I hope you enjoy!

Back at the shield station Lance couldn’t help but still feel unsettled. He hugged himself for some sort of grounding but it wasn’t all too effective. He didn’t want to bother Allura with it since she now obviously doesn’t truly want him there.

Understandably dying and coming back from the dead made the red paladin feel like his body wasn’t exactly his own. His skin felt strange as if he had recently put on a new neon purple one-size-fits-all full body spandex, it felt wrong and out of place. It also came with that weird urge to skin himself but also to wrap himself with bubble wrap like he was a delicate, fragile object that he needed to protect extra carefully because it was just a borrowed good.

The boy altered his balance from one foot to the other while he stood between Allura and Pidge holding onto his right arm to quell the symptom feeling of falling apart. His limbs seemed to be held together by thin threads that were on the verge of loosening up.

“Thank you for reminding us what it means to be Galra,” commander Bogh spoke with Hunk a couple of feet away where a living soldier stood with them.  
Lance knew that these two Galra were somehow involved with whatever transcribed earlier, they had a conversation with the team but he can’t properly recall it anymore which only made him feel even more uneasy. He was forgetting pieces here and there, things that weren’t even that easy to forget, things he should remember easily!

Gone, forgotten.  
Just like him.

He startled a bit when the two Galra saluted: “Vrepit Sa!”  
Hunk copied their motion and repeated the phrase.

What happened?  
Why was Hunk saluting and using Galran phrases?  
When did that happen?

He didn’t remember.

“Man, that’s weird to say,” Hunk muttered prompting the team to laugh. Lance automatically joined in with a hollow laugh poorly mimicking the rest of the Voltron team.

It felt so fake… because it was. He didn’t quite get what they were talking about. He didn’t get what was so funny, it was unsettling, weird, sudden, new, uncomfortable.

Wrong.

The red paladin desperately tried to bury these thoughts in the back of his mind, he needed to stay focused, try to understand the situation and adapt, not be the liability that he always seemed to be.

Allura stepped forward from her position beside him and strode over to the Galra duo and Hunk: „I think it is time to leave, we still have a couple for distress signals to answer… I believe that you are able to repair the station in time for the next radiation belt yourself. But if you do need our help, don‘t hesitate to reach out to us.“

The Cuban boy tuned out the rest of the conversation, he had more important things at hand like figuring out what was missing. He was still holding on to his arm, shoulders slightly raised in a somewhat defensive position. His uneasy swaying from foot to foot hadn‘t stopped and one would have easily been able to tell that he was feeling unwell by his posture alone.

„Alright, time to go back to the castle!“, Pidge exclaimed jumping a step forward.  
Shiro nodded next to them, uncrossing his arms and making his way to the doors of the control center in a calm, relaxed walk.

They didn‘t notice him, did they?  
Why was no one asking him how he was? How he hasn‘t had a complete emotional breakdown yet? Why was no one concerned?

He watched as Pidge followed Shiro with a spring in their step. A turn of his head to the left gave the view of Hunk and Allura wrapping up their conversation with commander Bogh.

A coldness swept over his heart again. It was different than before but still cold, harsh and biting. It lured him in and tempted him to dissociate, shield him from the bad things, the feeling of being unwanted, unneeded, an unnecessary space filler.  
Lance pulled his arm a bit closer, sighed and leaned forward, putting a foot after the other, slowly stepping out of the control center and making his way to the ship hangar.

 

The hallways were dimly lit by the usual pink purple lighting that Galra seemed to implement everywhere they could. There were thin led stripes along the wall a bit higher than Lance was tall. He noticed that the light could have been inviting if it wasn’t for the pitch black color of the walls, the cold that creeped from the isolation that kept him from immediate death also known as space and the sheer emptiness of the long, seemingly endless hallway.

And somehow Lance felt himself identify with this weird desolate feeling that engulfed him as if a lovers hand gently caressed his own. It nudged his pinky, hooked them together. Teased the back of his hand with soft touches, then pried his cold fingers free just to encapture them in a lovingly firm grip. A hold that delivered the message that it will never let go.

 

Quiet.

Lance had been on his way to the hangar for a few ticks now and it was so so quiet. The only sound was a very distant humming of the ship and the soft tapping of his own, feather light steps.

Were did Pidge and Shiro go? Did they leave him alone on purpose?  
Well, they probably didn’t want Lance around like Allura, the paladin figured.

Step after step the coldness of the walls seemed to creep closer and closer, the end of the hallway further and further. But he kept going, planted a step after the other. He pushed forward. He needed to reach his goal.  
As he rounded the next corner warmth and relief washed over him pushing away all of the coldness. Just like Pidge and Shiro that feeling was just... gone. Deleted into non existence.

Before him stood the red lion, tall and proud. Her yellow eyes shined with pride while her mind seemed to nudge on their shared mental link. She portrayed might and self-will. He knew that she wanted him to portray that as well but… he couldn‘t.  
With a resigned sigh he trudged over to the lions opened jaw and boarded the sentient alien spaceship.

The former blue paladin raised a hand to steady himself on the wall. With each step it felt like another tiny piece of his being dislocated until he came apart into space dust standing in the all too familiar cockpit. The dim red lighting only reminded him of what transpired only a few moments, maybe a bit more than a full varga ago.

Doom. That was what it had felt like when he had stood outside the lion.  
And while he couldn‘t exactly put it into words: This was worse.

The emptiness in his lungs made itself present again pulling the void to itself like moths to a flame. It was hard to breath, so hard to get oxygen in his air starved system.  
Struggling to just breathe Lance didn‘t even notice the black vignette slowly creeping over his vision while he still tried to go on and on on his way over to the pilot seat. It was only a few steps away, he kept telling himself but it felt like miles upon miles.

One hand on the wall, the other blindly flailing to hit the armrest of his seat. He could do this. No need to panic. He‘s not going to get zapped again. Just one more step and he should be there. No need to panic, calm down. Breath in, breath out. It‘s all going to be alright.

With a racing heart and a breath still held he stepped forward again. His fingertips brushed familiar metal and Red seemed to distantly tap on his mind. See, no need to doubt himself, he did it after all, no electricity coursing through his veins this time. All was good.

 

Lance sighed and hesitantly opened his eyes. He hadn‘t even noticed that he had closed them.  
With shaking hands he reached for his helmet that innocently laid on his seat and pulled it over his head. Low chatter came from the com and filled his head.

„Oh, how very nice of you to finally join us, Lance!“, Pidge's voice spiced through the line when she noticed that he was present.

Lances head ached from the previous episode and this didn‘t exactly made it more pleasant. A dull throbbing was constantly behind his eyes and a cracking pressure on his whole head.

„Ughh,“ he groaned, „I‘m here now, let‘s go.“

He just wanted to go far away. Away from all his problems. The pain, the fear, the feelings. Away from himself and his life. Leave it all behind and just go.

„Grumpy very much?“, Pidge piped up after a handful of ticks. A slow exhale from Shiro.  
The team readied themselves to launch, Allura and Hunk had arrived while Lance had struggled to reach his seat so they had all been waiting for him. He always seemed to hold them back…

Being back in space with only stars as far as the eye can see was weirdly calming and unsettling at the same time. It just reminded him of vastness of space and… voidness. It reminded him of death, unconsciousness... home.

The red paladin hugged himself, pulled his long limbs closer to himself.

Maybe he should just leave everything behind? Would the others miss him? They would be able to fill the empty pilot seat with Keith if he just left so they wouldn‘t need to worry about forming Voltron. Or maybe Coran could fill it? He had been so excited and passionate back when they were looking for a new black paladin.

A dopey smile etched itself across the Cubans lips while his eyes were unfocused but in the direction of the far away stars.  
Everything would work out just fine! He could leave, everything would work out and there was nothing holding him back.

Lance faintly heard Pidge speak over the com: „Nice work out there, Hunk. That Galra training really toughened you up!“  
Galra training? Probably just another thing that slipped his memory when he was out of commission…  
But if Hunk „toughened up“ that just meant that he would be able to take care of himself and the team. They would surely survive in their four man team seeing that all of them - Shiro, Allura, Pidge and Hunk - improved and got better. They didn‘t need him.

The others seemed to be a step ahead of him with this as well seeing that all that was missing was for him to let go of them as they already did with him.


End file.
